‘I agree,’ says Felix. ‘And she’s not particularly close to her family. So why come back? I keep thinking about her being pregnant. Maybe she … oh fuck, I don’t know.’ Suddenly he grabs my hand and kisses it. We lock eyes and my heart jerks into a higher gear.
‘C’mon,’ he says, ‘let’s get out of here.’ He pulls me up and runs his hands down the length of my body as I scramble to get my bag and quell the fire that races through me.
Chapter Eighteen
Tuesday, 15 December, 6.56 pm
I dial Anna on the way to Dad’s after work.
‘Good timing,’ she says, ‘I got the tox report about an hour ago. Alright, so …’ Anna breathes into the phone. ‘She was pissed, but that was it. Traces of marijuana too, but that would’ve been from weeks ago. Seems like your teacher friend dabbled sometimes.’
‘How drunk was she?’
‘On her way. Blood alcohol of .08. She would have been either overly excited or starting to get a little melancholy, depending on what kind of drunk she was and what her tolerance was like.’
I picture Rose swaying as she stood in the middle of a trampoline at a house party in our final year, her eyes slanting slightly. I remember her jumping suddenly and then falling backwards with her hands across her chest. She lay there for a few minutes in the middle of the noisy party just staring at the sky. I watched her for ages.
‘I don’t think she was the overly excitable type. But I didn’t really know her that well.’
‘Anyway, that’s about it. I can confirm her pregnancy was about eleven weeks along. We can assume she would have known.’
‘We haven’t been able to find any medical records about her pregnancy,’ I tell Anna.
‘Well, maybe she was in denial,’ Anna replies. ‘It happens.’
I swallow, glancing at Ben in the rear-view mirror. He’s playing with an action man, stretching his legs into side splits, oblivious to the content of my phone call.
‘Anything else?’ I ask.
‘I think she was in the water for a few hours,’ says Anna. ‘And I think she was killed around midnight. Maybe a little earlier.’
‘Straight after the play,’ I say.
‘Yep,’ says Anna cheerily.
‘What about the sexual assault? You mentioned some bruising and obviously there’s the missing underwear. Anything else?’
‘Yeah, that’s tricky. I’d guess she was assaulted because her underwear was missing, but who knows? Maybe she just wasn’t wearing any. Did you guys find any?’
‘Nope. Not that I’ve been told anyway.’
‘There’s no DNA because of the water. No clear evidence of violence either, just the bruising around her thighs, but I’m still not sure what that means. It could have been from roughish sex. There are some strange scratches that are hard to explain. But they could be from sticks in the lake.’
I’m almost at Dad’s. Ben lifts his head, recognising familiar landmarks.
‘Was she seeing anyone or are we looking at an immaculate conception?’ asks Anna.
I laugh. ‘We’re not sure yet. We’re still looking into whether she was officially seeing anyone. There’s nothing solid at the moment.’
I think about the heart-shaped stone we found at her house. Was it from a lover?
‘Well, enjoy your night,’ says Anna. ‘No doubt I’ll see you soon. Hopefully at the bar rather than the autopsy table.’
I say goodbye to Anna.
Wild roses curl up the side of Dad’s brick fence next to where I park the car and I stare at them, turning them into tiny red dots, wondering, for what feels like the thousandth time, who the hell killed Rosalind Ryan.
Chapter Nineteen
Tuesday, 15 December, 7.22 pm
‘Are you looking after yourself?’
‘For the most part,’ I say, letting my feet dangle just above the shiny white tiles. Dad recently renovated his kitchen and there is now an island bench equipped with high stools. I kick my legs back and forth like a child as I watch him make dinner. He moved into this house on Winston Grove about three years ago. It’s a sweet little street: slightly elevated, so you can look out across the centre of Smithson from the hill in the backyard. Dad seems happy here; he’s even mentioned getting a dog. Scott and I have been renting my family home from him since he moved here. It made sense: I was pregnant and we barely had any savings. Dad was keen on the arrangement. The memories in the house were becoming too much for him but he couldn’t bear for it to belong to someone else. Three years later, and Scott and I have made no progress towards buying our own place. I feel paralysed at the thought and change the subject every time Scott or Dad mentions it. For now, Scott seems content enough to tinker in the yard and put new cupboards in the bedrooms.
‘Are you drinking too much?’
‘I’m drinking enough, Dad.’ My voice is firm and he nods, stirring cream into the pasta.
I can hear Ben’s laughter from the lounge room. He is watching The Smurfs. Ben’s laugh always makes me nervous. I worry for the day when he won’t laugh easily: the day when he can’t sit back and enjoy Gargamel hunting down the tiny blue people.
‘How’s Scott?’
I pick at some skin that has split down the side of my nail. It pulls away and a tiny trail of blood breaks out. I hold my thumb onto it, pressing hard. ‘He’s fine. Busy.’
‘Mm.’
Dad’s new kitchen is still small but a skylight has been cut into the ceiling and the last of the sun hits the wall above his head. Dad is tall and lean and shows no sign of stooping. His hair has been completely white for over a decade. He is the most capable person I know. Dad is a fixer. I suppose ‘handyman’ is the technical term. Mechanical, electrical, old, new: Dad can tackle pretty much anything. He’s ridden the digital revolution like a pro and has added computers and smart phones to the things he can bring back to life. His hands just seem to know what to do.
After Mum died I remember lying on the lounge, staring at the wall and hearing him say to my aunt Megan that this was the first time he’d ever felt like there was something in front of him that he couldn’t fix. Megan, who is teary at the best of times, had simply howled into her hanky.
‘Shame he couldn’t come tonight,’ Dad says.